Mexico won't pay a cent for Trump's 'stupid wall'

Hadley Gamble speaks to
Mexico;s former president Felipe Calderon about
Donald Trump's plan to build a wall across the Mexican
border.

Donald Trump may want to build a wall across the U.S.
southern border to keep Mexican migrants out but don't expect Mexico to
pay for it, former President Felipe Calderon told CNBC, calling the
billionaire a "not very well-informed man."

But Calderon, Mexico's president from
2006 to 2012, told CNBC on Saturday that there was no way that Mexico
would pay for it.

"Mexican people, we are not going to pay
any single cent for such a stupid wall! And it's going to be completely
useless," Calderon said.

"The first loser of such a policy would be
the United States," he said.

"If this guy pretends that closing the
borders to anywhere either for trade (or) for people is going to provide
prosperity to the United States, he is completely crazy."

CRIS BOURONCLE/AFP/Getty Images

Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon

When announcing his presidential bid last June, Trump said
"the U.S. had become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems,"
and called out Mexico as a particular culprit.

"When Mexico sends its
people, they're not sending their best. ...They're sending people that
have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us.
They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And
some, I assume, are good people," Trump said.

Calderon questioned the caliber of
candidates like Trump, who has offended large sections of the population
, including Muslims by calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering
the U.S., as well as attracting a large following during his
presidential bid.

"It is incredible that a quite admirable society like the
American society could produce such kind of candidates," Calderon said.

"I cannot understand that. No offense, no offense to America. So Donald
Trump … is ambitious but not exactly very well-informed man, I don't
want to say ignorant, but he is not very well informed."

Calderon said the level of migration of the Mexican labor force to the U.S. had been steadily declining.

His comments are borne out by analysis carried out by the
Pew Research Center showing that the overall flow of Mexican immigrants
between the two countries is at its smallest since the 1990s.

From 2009 to 2014, 1million Mexicans and
their families, including U.S.-born children, left the U.S. for Mexico,
according to data from the 2014 Mexican National Survey of Demographic
Dynamics, Pew said.

U.S. census data for the same period show
an estimated 870,000 Mexican nationals left Mexico to come to the U.S., a
smaller number than the flow of families from the U.S. to Mexico.

Calderon said that children studying in
Mexican schools and universities no longer wanted to go the U.S. as they
had opportunities closer to home with around 4 percent unemployment,
although he conceded that there were still "bad salaries" in Mexico.

"They don't want to go, they can work for a
motor company (that's) not in Detroit, I am sorry to say.

They are
working for a motor company in Hermosillo and Toluca, so Mazda is coming
to Mexico, Honda is coming to Mexico. Those kids have jobs in that
industry in Mexico."